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Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Vintage Film Watchlist: Bachelor Knight

If you're based in the UK, you might have noticed that BBC2 is screening old films early on Sunday mornings. Now, I'm never up at 6am on a Sunday, but thanks to the magic of technology I was able to catch up recently with a Cary Grant film from 1947 that I had never heard of, let alone seen before, despite Sydney Sheldon winning an Oscar for its screenplay.

All images IMDB.com

Known in the US as 'The Batchelor and the Bobby-Soxer', it was screened in the UK as 'Bachelor Knight'. The plot is a little silly, as you could expect from this genre - Myrna Loy is a judge, Margaret Turner (that's not the silly bit) who comes across Cary Grant's character Richard Nugent in her courtroom as he appears to have been at the centre of a disturbance in a nightclub. An artist, 'Dick' later gives a talk at the school that Margaret's 17 year old sister, Susan attends, and it's there that Susan develops a schoolgirl crush on him. Convinced by her psychiatrist brother that the quickest way for Susan to get over the crush is to naturally get tired of Dick, Margaret asks Dick to take Susan out for picnics and basketball games (all very wholesome). Obviously the real romance is between Margaret and Dick, but there are a few capers and some witty dialogue to get through before that emerges.

Also, there are gowns! Myrna Loy has some great outfits, including a wonderful suit that her sister Susan 'borrows'.

Watching this film certainly gave me a renewed appreciation of Myrna Loy - she is really fantastic, and I'd love to see more films with her in. I think to date I've only seen her in a couple of other films, and can't even remember what those were!

Pop over to TCM to watch a trailer here - unfortunately it's not on BBC iplayer anymore, but it's out on DVD so you could probably pick up a copy on Amazon.

Have you seen this film? Have you watched many others starring Myrna Loy?

8 comments:

Thanks for reviewing this movie and for putting up all the lovely screen shots. I've had this movie on my netflix's list for ages but because of this review I moved it way up to the top of the list. I love seeing movies with Shirley Temple as a teenager!

I love Myrna Loy! The Thin Man movies are silly but smart, and I love that her character is portrayed as equally (or more) smart and capable as her detective husband. (These are the Nick and Nora movies.) I'd recommend checking them out, if you never have.

That is one of the most charming, somewhat campy movies of the 40s in my opinion. It was a big hit here in North America at the time and is still one of the few movies from that decade your average (aka, non-vintage/classic Hollywood loving) person would be apt to have at least heard the title of (Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Rebecca, and It's a Wonderful Life are some others that spring to mind in that category).